Recovery from Sandy a year later is clearly a marathon, not a sprint, along the Jersey shore, where very little is fully back to normal and parts of it may now have a whole new normal.

WBAL-TV 11 News I-Team lead investigative reporter Jayne Miller returned to Sandy's hardest-hit target, the Jersey shore, where residents are still working hard to recover a year later. Second only to Hurricane Katrina in total damage, Sandy's legacy continues to be defined.

At The Crab's Claw restaurant in Lavallette, N.J., the lunch crowd is sure to include someone who's still dealing with Superstorm Sandy. Carroll Porter fits the bill as he just recently got back into his house in Ocean Beach.

"I had about 2 feet of water, no structural damage, but I had enough water that pretty much the whole place was messed up, and I'm back in. (It has) been in about three months, and I jokingly say to everyone the only thing not new in the house is me," Porter said.

A sense of humor comes in handy as so much remains to be done to recover from all that Sandy did a year ago. A picture in the restaurant shows how the ocean swamped this part of the Jersey Shore. Lavallette fared better than some of his neighbors, but still, the damage was widespread.

"I think we had 85 percent of our homes in town with some kind of water damage under the house, in the house or beyond," said Joanne Filippone, a member of the Lavallette Borough Council.

The landscape still bears the storm's scars. Some properties ravaged by wind and surge haven't been touched as owners decide whether to rebuild or wait for insurance payments.

The ocean carved new inlets in Mantoloking Borough, wiping away 20 homes and cutting off Route 35, the island's main road. A year later, that same area has been cleared and a retaining wall is in place. One property owner has begun reconstruction.

"When you think about it, last year at this time, our town was cut into thirds. We had three inlets going from the ocean into the bay, and now you hear behind me the traffic on 35 going through and all of the infrastructure has been put back," Mantoloking Borough spokesman Chris Nelson said.

But Nelson still isn't back in his family home, which has been raised up, and along the town's coast, big gaps remain where homes were washed away.

"We probably lost about a third of our housing stock in town, most of it on the ocean," Nelson said.

The year has been especially cruel in Seaside Heights, where its iconic boardwalk was rebuilt after the storm. But last month, fire wiped out part of it.

In neighboring Ortley Beach, the devastation has been cleared, but rebuilding is still an open question for many families. Ken Sosnicki, a builder, said his business is very good. He's working on an area at Normandy Beach that burned last year due to Sandy's wrath.

"We've been going seven days a week since the storm. I actually haven't had a day off since the storm," Sosnicki said.

From the air last year, Miller said it appeared her family's home on the Barnegat Bay had fared OK, but in fact, it was badly flooded. Miller said they demolished the house in the spring and are now building up.

"You are going to see most of the homes here are going to be up on pilings, so what it used to look like is going to be completely different. It's going to take five to 10 years," Sosnicki said.

The cost of flood insurance is driving decisions by property owners. It will be prohibitively expensive unless new elevations above sea level are followed. A big project is about to get under way to build bigger and better dunes.

The town is fighting with some of its property owners who don't want to give up rights to their oceanfront land so a new dune can be built. Last week, the Town Council voted to take the land through eminent domain.

"We're not actually taking the property to build something or steal it or take their homes. We are taking the area in front very defined area to put a lot of sand on it," Nelson said.

The fight is brewing all along the Jersey shore post-Sandy. Holdout owners don't want to lose their view.

"The beauty of the beachfront property is you get to wake up, stretch and see the ocean. If you get to wake up and see a bunch of sand dunes, it's not as pleasing, and the value is somewhat lowered," said Steve Jandel.

Work to repair roads and infrastructure is far from complete. Some houses damaged by Sandy remained untouched. Others are still being demolished. New ones are being built on pilings. Sandy's legacy is changing the Jersey Shore, but the locals insist not its people.

"We're just loyal Jersey people, and the Jersey Shore is the bomb. We just always came down here," said Donna Cramer, who rented an oceanfront house for the week.

"My grandfather has had a place here since the 1950s. It's what I enjoy, coming down here," said Bill Demscak, who rented an oceanfront house for the week.

"If you love the beach and you love the ocean, it gets in your blood. People don't leave. They don't want to leave," Filippone said. "I know, early on -- I'm one of them -- senior citizens said, 'Oh, I can't do this. I am going to sell. I'm going to leave.' Most of the ones I know have changed their mind. They're fixing and they are coming back."

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